Roman Storm’s defense hints at mistrial after agents fail to trace funds stolen from witness to Tornado Cash

Roman Storm’s defense team raised the prospect of a mistrial on July 21 after an FBI agent failed to confirm that the stolen assets from the prosecution’s first witness in his trial had passed through Tornado Cash. 

Journalist Matthew Russell Lee reported in real-time today’s session of the trial, highlighting that before the jury could retire in the alternate jury room, Storm’s lawyer said they would confer about moving for a mistrial.

Journalist David Z. Morris then posted a video explaining that the FBI agent responsible for tracking the funds from the first witness, Katie Lin, was unable to follow the funds to Tornado Cash.

Funds not found

Lin told jurors last week she lost her life savings to a pig-butchering scheme and believed the proceeds moved through the crypto mixer Storm co-created.

Defense attorney Brian Patton argued that Lin’s account may be inadmissible if prosecutors cannot prove Tornado Cash handled her coins.

He argued in front of US District Judge Katherine Polk Failla that presenting sympathetic testimony without a verifiable on-chain link “prejudices the jury” and suggested the deficiency could warrant a mistrial. 

Prosecutors stated that a second tracing expert will address the transfers later in the trial. However, they did not indicate whether the witness would appear in person or submit a written analysis.

Independent research challenges government tracing

The dispute arose after MetaMask security lead Taylor Monahan published a thread on July 18, in which she shared her review of Lin’s transactions. 

Monahan wrote that the $250,000 wired to a fake trading site called NTU Capital never touched Tornado Cash or Coinbase. Instead, the scammer swapped Bitcoin for Ethereum (ETH) via an instant-exchange service, then moved the ETH among self-controlled wallets.

She posted Dune Analytics queries and federal asset-seizure filings that list the addresses, contending that an outside “crypto recovery” firm misidentified Tornado Cash in 2022 when advising Lin.

Judge Failla allowed Patton to confer with Storm regarding the mistrial, which would leave prosecutors to decide whether to retry Storm on sanctions-violation and money laundering counts stemming from the Treasury’s 2022 designation of Tornado Cash as a facilitator of illicit fund flows.

For now, proceedings hinge on whether the forthcoming expert can verify a Tornado Cash link that the FBI’s analyst could not establish.

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